Last year the Government of China announced that from January 1, 2017 onwards, all foreign NGO’s in China would be required to register. For many reasons this has been problematic for the thousands of NGO’s operating in China, many of whom have suspended operations indefinitely.

We are pleased to inform you, however, that The Leprosy Project has successfully registered as a Foreign Non-Governmental Organization in the Province of Sichuan, People’s Republic of China on May 11th, 2017. Our registration number is G1510000MCW169967P and it was officially announced on the Central Government website on May 31st, 2017.

Although The Leprosy Project is small, operating on a tight budget, it is among the less than 1% of NGOs that have successfully registered. Other successful NGO’s include large well-funded groups such as the Li Ka Shing Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This reaffirms our commitment to continuing to serve the people affected by leprosy and their families in the 16 leprosy villages and centers where we work. This includes 5 new villages and 2 new centers that the Center for Disease Control of Liangshan Province requested we take on in 2017, after seeing the success we have achieved in the last 9 villages we service.

We appreciate the support of the Health and Family Planning Commission of Sichuan Province during the registration process and for agreeing to act as our Supervisory Unit as required by the new law. We shall abide by the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Administration of Activities of Overseas Non-Governmental Organizations on the Mainland of China in the operation of our service for the people affected by leprosy in the Liangshan Prefecture.

We would not have been able to achieve these results without the continued support from our donors and partners. You make our work possible and we all thank you for that.

We have a lot of work ahead of us in the 5 new villages and 2 new centers; we need your support in order to continue to help the people affected by leprosy.